The Arabist

Syria: The fall of al-Moushat Academy

This report by Florence Aubenas on the fall of al-Moushat Academy near Aleppo, Syria's elite military academy, is incredible. It details the sectarian tensions inside of the academy growing over the last year, culminating as rebels began to lay siege to it. Over time, officers and cadets would break apart along sectarian lines inside the academy compound. They survived on nearly nothing for weeks, unable to go out during the day due to sniper fire, fighting each other for scraps of food at night. The Alawites in particular appear to have had a gradual descent into Apocalypse Now style madness, paranoid about their Sunni fellow officers and shouting the "Bashar is God". Just incredible reporting: